This invention relates to radiotelephone communication systems in general and more particularly to the method and apparatus of transferring a radiotelephone call by a subscriber unit from one radio coverage area to another radio coverage area.
In radiotelephone systems having more than one radio coverage area, it is well known to coordinate the service provided in the radio coverage areas by enabling a radiotelephone call established in a first of the radio coverage areas to be maintained as the subscriber unit moves to a second radio coverage area. This transferring of the call service is conventionally known as handoff, handover, or link transfer.
Cellular radiotelephone systems are known for their ability to maintain a telephone call over a wide geographic area by handing off a telephone call between radio coverage areas (or "cells"). Handoff techniques used in such cellular systems have been documented in the literature (see "Control Architecture" by Fluhr, et al., the Bell System Technical Journal Vol. 58, No. 1, Jan. 1979, pp. 43-69). Generally in handing off a call from one cell to another, it is necessary for the system to determine which cell has the best communication path to the subscriber unit and then instruct the subscriber unit as to which frequency it should tune in order to maintain the conversation into the new, target cell. More recently, the subscriber unit has been taking a more active role in the handoff decision-making process by providing information to the fixed network regarding which communication channels are suitable for continuing the call in a target cell (see, for exam_pie, U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,100).
In the more recently developed systems in which the subscriber unit participates in the handoff determination, the fixed system equipment must smoothly and efficiently connect the telephone call from a target cell site to the call in progress. It has been suggested in Electronic Industries Association specification IS-41 that the wireline telephone switch which initially receives and processes the radiotelephone call act as an anchor point for all future handoff activities. The anchor wireline telephone switch then connects the call to the radio subscriber unit, regardless of the subscriber unit's cell location. This plan, however, requires the wireline telephone switches to be specifically designed to handle wireless telephone services. Such use of wireline telephone switches is inefficient due to the substantial amount of overhead which must be dedicated to radiotelephone processing rather than to switch interconnection.
It has also been suggested that a Class 5 telephone switch which supports a wireline feature commonly termed "barge-in" can be used to implement handoff. Barge-in allows a wireline subscriber C to send a Call Identity message defining a call in progress between wireline subscribers A and B to an ISDN supporting Class 5 switch to cause all three parties to be connected via a conference bridge. Barge-in implementation for wireless handoff, however, requires ISDN capability and consistency between Class 5 switches. Moreover, handoff using a barge-in feature is limited to the Class 5 switch in which the call was originated so that handoff occurring between radio coverage areas supported by different Class 5 switches cannot occur using conventional barge-in techniques.
Therefore, it would be desirable to employ standard wireline telephone switches to control call switching functions without regard to whether the calls are wireline or wireless calls and to route call handoff between various other standard wireline telephone switches. The anchor point radiotelephone handoff process should be maintained as a radiotelephone system function which is compatible with these standard wireline telephone switches.